Freedom of the Void: Life wasn’t too bad for the crew of Saoirse (Sheer-sah). Sure they’d lost the war (well most of them anyway) and the Democratic-Republic* of Meridian has reinstated their control over the ring, with the exception of the Joumana System, and the only way they can eke out a living in this economy is thieving and smuggling, but things were relatively calm. That is until they rescue a young woman off a derelict who isn’t what she seems.

Freedom of the Void will be a series of 32 page comics, most of which will encompass a whole-nearly-stand-alone plot. The first issue has been written, just needs art. However, as it was the first comic script I ever successfully completed, it probably has my usual problem of too much dialogue, too small of a panel. I haven’t checked on it in the last month as I abandoned it for a story whose art I could do justice. Now I’m going back to it since I’m more inspired by this one.

*If you feel the need to repeat that your people are free, they usually aren’t.

PROJECT SUMMER HAIL
Project Summer Hail exists to create transgenic supersoldiers, mostly for black ops missions. They’re endowed with superior strength, agility, intelligence (they can solve complex math problems in their head and have eidetic memory), and healing (a little better than Buffy, nowhere near as good as Wolverine). Their entire lives they are trained to be soldiers, weapons. There was no play time while they were children; there was training, training, and weapons training. They learn how to be anyone the mission could call for. Most of them are experimented on at some point in their lives.

X-242 (Bridget Tereshkova) is one such transgenic. She escaped when she was sixteen after being assaulted by one of the guards. Fortunately for her, blind obedience had never been her strong point. After that she lived as a common thief occasionally joining up with a crew like Saoirse’s for a short period of time since the increased mobility makes her harder to find.

–The crew of the Saoirse is really struggling and they’ve taken to theft and smuggling. So why would they take on a seemingly unimportant lady from a derelict ship? It might be more interesting and believable if there’s some element of conflict present in why they take her. (IE: Are they essentially holding her until she pays for her fare? Is she hiding something about herself that will endanger them, like “I have hundreds of armed men out for my blood and I need an unregistered ship to hide my tracks”?)

–How much can the crew of the Saoirse find out about Bridget right away? (For example, if her ship was derelict because it got ravaged in a fight with capital ships, perhaps they could determine at a glance that the damage wasn’t caused by, say, an unlucky asteroid). Inferences like these could be useful in establishing the relationship between the crew and Bridget. (For example, if you were trying to increase the conflict between the two, one possibility would be that one of the crewmates has a pretty good hunch that she’s lying about something).

–Saoirse sounds Irish (?) but I would imagine that most Americans, Canadians and UK readers would really struggle with the pronunciation. Unless your target audience is Irish people, could I recommend something a bit more intuitive for people reading aloud? (If your target audience is Irish readers and it’s easy for them to pronounce, I don’t think it’d be a problem).

–Just to clarify (even though it’ll make me look like an idiot for the eighth time this week), Project Summer Hail is part of FOTV rather than a second comic series, right?

–What’s the relationship of Bridget to the privateers that have rescued her?

Here’s the first page. I realize it’s better to have this info revealed through interactions between characters but couldn’t figure out how to reveal it all in a timely manner without detracting from the story. I would have preferred to open with the battle, but it would have taken too many pages and I’d have to go up an issue size. I’m trying to keep my issues small as possible to keep the story fairly fast paced without rushing it.

Freedom of the Void
“Shattered Dreams”

PAGE ONE

PANEL 1
EXT. EARTH – VOID

Caption: You know how it was. First Earth got used up so we took to the stars and terraformed a new system.

Caption: Eventually Meridian handed over terraforming and colonization efforts to the corporations.

A terraformer on an ocean at sunset. Maybe we see two moons?

PANEL 3
EXT. VISHNU MARKETPLACE, CORALINE – DAY

Caption: The ring pretty much ruled itself.

People living their lives doing everyday stuff like shopping for food.

PANEL 4
EXT. BRISTOL CAPITOL – DAY

Caption: Then Bristol had the famine and the riots. Meridian sent troops to establish martial law under the Meridian flag to “maintain the peace.”

Rioting and mayhem.

PANEL 5
EXT. BATTLEGROUND – NIGHT

Caption: Deciding the other systems were incapable of ruling themselves adequately, the Meridian Coalition reinstated their power over the ring.

Soldiers in both uniforms fighting. Not particularly graphic, but still clearly unpleasant.

PANEL 6

Caption: But wars rarely change anyone’s mind.

ISAAC VIDAL in his iconic Devilduster uniform looking determined. No idea what I’ll have him be doing. Devilduster is a general term that applies to people who opposed Unity, especially those who fought in the war. Originally it only applied to the special forces.

END PAGE ONE

I’m just going to read through page two, and if it’s fine I’ll post it.

B. Mac-
They take her aboard because they’re still good people and though he’s a thief and a smuggler, Capt. Isaac Vidal is really a big softie with a slight hero complex who wants to help people. She chooses to stay with them because they’re mobile, not loyal to Meridian, and enable her to hide her tracks fairly well.

–Everything she tells them is a lie. Isaac starts to have his doubts about her which causes some tension, especially after she takes down an armed pirate from another ship (He looked away, I kicked him down the stairs). Oz dismisses that as a lucky shot, and the girls on the crew would point out regardless of the truth of the matter, that saved all of their lives. Marcus opinion is hardly relevant as he doesn’t trust anyone. They find her in a cryo, and she tells him she was taken by slavers. Actually she was taken by bounty hunters since she’s wanted by the government for escaping Project Summer Hail (part of the story, not it’s own. Though I could do one later dedicated to the project alone). The ship had mechanical problems, probably sabotage but I haven’t worked out that part too well, and they left in escape pods or a shuttle or something.

–I know it’s hard to pronounce, but the name is a really big deal for me. And it’s meaning (freedom) is relevent to the story. And it’s Irish which I love. I probably should change it, but I doubt anyone will abandon the story because the name is hard to pronounce. If I give it’s pronounciation in every issue I doubt it would be a problem. Though if you have a name you think would suit it better I’d love to hear it. The runner up name choice was Lakshmi. It’s pronounced exactly how it looks. The captain’s wife is Hindu, and he told her family he was Hindu too (he’s agnostic, but he did agree they’d raise any children they have to be Hindu). I’m pretty sure her family knows he said that so they wouldn’t disapprove of him, but by that point they were just happy to see Chandni smiling again. Her first husband and children died during the war when their house was bombed while she was at the market. She was extremely depressed for a while and at her family’s urging she began to pursue flying. She wound up flying the privateer ship Saoirse/Lakshmi/something good, though this was before Isaac became the captain. They met, fell in love, the captain retired passing the role to Isaac.

–She gets along well with most of them, even becoming their cook. There is some tension between her and Oz (who was a loyal Meridian soldier once upon a time) but nothing too serious and that’s mostly an act since she feels it would be odd for her to accept him right away when his people blew up the planet she claims to be from. But mostly they like eachother. A lot. ;D The Saoirse/Lakshmi rule: If you’re crew, you’re family. We may not always get along, but we always have your back. Even so, Isaac especially will be pissed off when he finds out how badly she’s wanted. Not enough to turn her in though. They could use the money, but once he knows her situation he has to do the right thing. Plus, by then he’s well aware of what she’s capable of and knows that 1) She’s of use and 2) She can kill them all so pissing her off is probably not the best idea. Though she’d die or go back to Summer Hail to save them, if the entire crew betrayed her she’d have no problem killing them all.

Some thoughts and suggestions…
–I’d like the first caption to be more memorable, something that will grab us right away.

–In page 1, panel 3, I don’t understand the connection between the visual (people doing everyday things at the marketplace) and the caption.

–Who or what is Meridian? Is it okay that I don’t know? (“Eventually Meridian handed over terraforming and colonization efforts to the corporations”) My first guess was that Meridian is the name of a political leader.

–Who or what is “the ring”?

–“Then Bristol had the famine and the riots. Meridian sent troops to establish martial law under the Meridian flag to ‘maintain the peace.’” One alternate setting for this panel would be at the same marketplace. (You could do a contrast between the marketplace loaded with food and people milling around and one where the shops have been ripped up, there’s no food and riot police are roughing people up).

“Then Bristol had the famine and the riots. Meridian sent troops to establish martial law under the Meridian flag to “maintain the peace.”” I feel like the narrator is expositing more than he needs to here. For example, he probably doesn’t need to sarcastically remark about “maintain[ing] the peace” because you can show us visually that Meridian’s troops are brutal. Alternately, if you’d really like to play up the discrepancy between Meridian’s rhetoric and its actions, you could start the comic with a public announcement by one of Meridian’s leaders and cut to the marketplace to show us what’s actually happening. Or maybe one of Meridian’s leaders announcing something along the lines of “In light of recent law-enforcement difficulties, [phrase suggesting what Meridian is] is suspending local governance in this sector. Please direct all inquiries and complaints to the Meridian military commander overseeing your territory, along with your address.”

Panel 5: “Deciding the other systems were incapable of ruling themselves adequately, the Meridian Coalition reinstated their power over the ring. Panel 6: “But wars rarely change anyone’s mind.” I’m not sure how these two captions connect. What does reinstating their power over the ring have to do with changing anybody’s mind?

I think panel 6 could more smoothly tie in Isaac to what we learned in the first five panels. (For example, if he’s a wanted criminal for fighting against Unity, maybe he walks past a wanted poster hanging on a wrecked building).

In page 2, panel 1, I’d like a more interesting visual. The caption itself could be more interesting and show us more about the sector. For example, if the most important thing about this sector was that it was really rough, I might try something like “Morrigan Quadrant—33 hours from Lorraine, 20 minutes from hell. The original Captain Morrigan, the Scourge of Three Worlds, renamed the quadrant after himself while drunkenly pissing on a [priceless piece of art.] He’s been dead for three centuries—biologists guess because of a still-unidentified strain of gonorrhea—but nobody’s been brave enough to rename it.”

I’d like this exchange to be a bit more memorable. ISAAC (O.P.): My birthday was four months ago, Chandni. CHANDNI: Yes, dear, and I just remembered it now. I’m not exactly sure what their relationship is like, so maybe this is off-tone for them, but I’d like a bit more spark here. For example, “That would’ve been a great idea… four months ago.” “I’ll be sure to remember you next time, dear.”
“MARCUS: How could you ruin the Captain’s present like that, Oz? We have an airlock.” This is pretty hilarious, although I think it could be clearer that he’s joking about throwing her out of the airlock.
OZ: “It’s a nineteen year old girl.” Oz is the more compassionate of the two, right? I’d recommend rephrasing “It’s” to “She’s…” Also, I think this is an awkward way to introduce her age. I think you could just show her in the tank and we’ll have a pretty good idea how old she is.

In page 2, panel 6, Oz gets a line of dialogue that’s labeled OP and one that’s not. This might confuse an artist—is he supposed to be off-panel or not?

What’s the style of the ship like? It might help to give your artist a few ideas about what you’d like the visuals to suggest about them—for example, if they’re supposed to be struggling, you could ask the artist to make the ship’s insides generally grungy and spartan.

Where did Chandni find the cryo? (I feel like the acquisition could be interesting?)

I’d like Bridget to more quickly establish herself as unusual and/or interesting. She doesn’t seem to have a strong personality to me. For example, depending on what her personality is, it might make sense for her to wake up and immediately snap to a question like “Who are you working for?”, which is probably a life-or-death question for her. (She needs to know if she can trust these people, right?) That’d probably be a reasonably effective way for one of the crew-members to explain where they are and what they’re doing. (We know they’re headed to Lorraine, but there’s no indication of privateering yet).

Page 4, panel 5—I think these 7 bubbles of dialogue might clutter the bubble. It may help to split up the lines over several panels.

“ISAAC: How is she? And why doesn’t she have clothes?” “MARCUS: No need to rush.” “ISAAC: Exactly what I mean, Marcus.” This might possibly be more stylish as ISAAC: Marcus, what the hell did you do to her clothes? MARCUS: They were gone when I got here, luckily enough. ISAAC: Is that true, Oz? OZ: Yep. MARCUS, mock indignation: I am shocked that you would accuse me of such a thing. ISAAC: Don’t make me throw you through the airlock. MARCUS: On the other hand, it was the most plausible possibility.

“As expected—it was slavers.” This seems like a non sequitur? (It comes out of nowhere?)

I’d like the conversation between Isaac and Bridget to be more interesting. She could probably get more exciting lines. Also, I’d sort of like something that sets the stakes a bit higher or builds a bit of conflict.

“Think they know about our little illegal salvage op?” I think you could imply more smoothly that they’re involved in illegal activity. (For example, he might make an observation that they didn’t bring a ship that heavily-armed just to look for a salvage operation. That would help pique the readers’ interest about what’s going on that’s bigger than meets the eye).

“She seems nice enough. Shouldn’t a problem.” I think the word “be” is missing here. Also—I’d like to see more of her personality than just “nice” over the first few pages. At the very least, can you imply there’s something hidden under the surface?

Chandni seems suspicious of her. I’d like to see that developed more.

Please feel free to send me more pages at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com. (I think it’d be preferable to posting more than, say, 10 pages online in a publicly available forum—publishers are a bit wary of that).

“I’d like the conversation between Isaac and Bridget to be more interesting. She could probably get more exciting lines. Also, I’d sort of like something that sets the stakes a bit higher or builds a bit of conflict.” Do you have any suggestions?

Also, there is more to Bridget than being nice (I’d even go so far as to say she isn’t really nice). It shows up more at the end but I wasn’t sure how to hint at her dishonesty without doing something that would give it away to the crew.

“Do you have any suggestions [about how to raise the stakes or build conflict in the Isaac-Bridget conversation]?” Hmm–right now, Isaac seems (implausibly?) friendly/generous for a character in his situation.
–He offers to take her home, even before he knows where that is.

–He does not apparently expect anything in return. I’d like him to be a bit less generous because I think it will create more room for conflict (which is generally more dramatic than not). For example, perhaps he offers to take her as far as Lorraine, but if she wants to stay onboard past that, she’d have to be willing to do some (possibly minor) service for the crew (such as peeling potatoes or some other drudge work the crew is sick of). One potential conflict is that she may initially feel she’s being taken advantage of, particularly if she comes from a background much better than peeling potatoes. (As she gains the trust of the crew, they may move her to more glorious work–for example, when they find out how useful she is in combat, maybe they eventually move her to a security role).

–Maybe he apologetically asks if she or her family can pay for her fare? (The crew isn’t making all that much money, right? Wouldn’t somebody get pissed off that they’re doing a charity run instead of potentially making more money that could go towards their pay?)

–I’d like her to WANT something of Isaac, maybe something he’s reluctant to provide. For example, perhaps time is absolutely of the essence to her, but he’s not willing to delay his mission for her, especially if she’s not willing to say why it’s so important she gets home immediately. Over time, he could gradually realize that it’s important enough to help her with fewer reservations, but I think it’d be more dramatic if that realization were gradual.

–“I’d even go so far as to say she isn’t really nice.” Then I’d recommend giving her some lines of dialogue that aren’t really nice. 😉 For example, when she wakes up for the first time, I’d imagine she’s really tense and nervous. If you wanted to give her some tense lines (maybe so tense she gets threatening if she feels she isn’t getting answers fast enough), I think you could use that as foreshadowing. (Also, if she really acts up in the first few moments after waking up next to strangers in an unknown location, I think the other characters could excuse that as just temporary stress rather than being unforgivably crazy).

Brett, do you want me to send you the script for review? I’ve fixed some of the glaring errors and feel it is decent now.

Originally it had aliens, but they got edited out when I started watching Firefly and I decided aliens required too much work to do right this early in my writing career. It has some western influence, though it’s less blatant than firefly. Really the Ring (systems outside Meridian System) even at its poorest is more depression era than 1860s western. Although I do have have the strong multicultural influences, particularly Chineese as we Americans don’t make up nearly as much of the world’s population as we like to think. Some countries, those that were particularly poor in money and/or resources and thus unable to contribute enough to the Exodus, or those that just flat out couldn’t cooperate with the American and Chinese domination Exodus Coalition did get left behind. So did many people in wealthy countries. I’m thinking around four billion people (still working on the number) got out. That’s about half the world’s population. Or I could never address it since I’m not sure it would be possible for the FotV-Verse’s population to be as large as it is. Only Meridian planets are crowded though.

The Exodus Coalition became the Meridian Coalition after landing on the Meridian planets Christina and Saejin. During the war, they changed it to Democratic-Republic of Meridian cause it sounds nicer, if not repetitive. The DRM (that was totally an accident) enforces strict censorship laws these days and if you live on a Meridian planet and talk badly of the government, you may disappear.

Also, because of the outrageously large number of genetically engineered characters I’ve created, I’ve been trying to change some of them. This is a tentative bg change:

Bridget Tereshkova’s Origin
Real Name: Ava Harley
Nationality: Meridian (the core system, birthplace of modern humanity, conqueror of worlds)
Birthplace: Saejin (“Jewel of the universe” center of Meridian culture)
Blood type: K (Keyah, named after the first person discovered to have this blood type) People with this blood type have highly enhanced healing, though not quite as good as Wolverine’s. If it takes too long to heal, she gets scars or dies. The healing is the result of lots of stem cells in the body, making her vulnerable to viruses that attack stem cells.
Origin:
Despite being born on Saejin, to Meridian parents, life was not as easy as a Ringer (someone born on the Ring, the worlds outside Meridian) would expect. Big business does its best to crush small business so by the time she was eight her family was penniless and in debt. They were still happy as they had each other, but accepted it was time to move on. They signed on to be indentured at a clay factory on the moon Barlowe in the Long System (Barlowe is a small moon on the edge of the system, owned by Frederick Barlowe. He was able to get it fairly easily since it was considered a terraforming failure, but turned out to be a wise investment since the dirt on much of the moon turns into clay ten times stronger than steel when mixed with water and the right catalysts and kilned proper). Though on the ring, Barlowe was still considered a Meridian territory (F. Barlowe was Meridian). Anyway there was an accident she healed from way too quickly when she was thirteen (making the Barlowe news) and Meridian Summer Hail agents abducted her from her home and trained her to be a supersoldier/assassin/spy. They also performed painful medical experiments on her to test the limits of her healing. She escaped when she was seventeen and used her training for thieving and con artistry. She was captured by bounty hunters and put in cryo. Their ship had mechanical problems so they abandoned it. The crew of Saoirse (Sheer-sah) came across it and defrosted her and ended up hiring her, believing she had been captured by slavers.

Basically I’ve ripped all of her genetically engineered abilities out and replaced them with just the healing, though I’ve enhanced it. However, not making her engineered but taken as a kid and trained, do you think it stands out enough from Firefly’s Academy? She’s not psychic. This was her original power. Though she does have eidetic memory from an implant and blades in her fore-arm.

Did I seriously put a dash in forearm? This must be why my mom encouraged me to major in something I could get a job at guaranteed (like being a psychologist). XD (She’s actually very supportive despite never getting to read anything but what I accidentally leave out).

Anyway, people who want to join the review process, contact me at saoirsefire42-at-gmail-dot-com or post your e-mail here and I’ll send it to you.

So to fix the whole \Isaac is a Malcom Reynolds clone\ thing, I’m mixing the crew up a bit. This is the best way I can think to fix it:

Captain: Chandni Dulur (she was originally the captain anyway. How many Hindu starship captains can you name? They’re a sizeable portion of the world’s population yet seem to not exist in most scifi).
Medic: Bridget Tereshkova (I can actually make this work. Unfortunately it requires editing how/why Oz joined and stayed with the crew).
Cargo Hand: Marcus Finely
First Mate: Isaac Vidal (now an ex-bounty hunter. His original role)
Pilot: Yue Inoue (she was originally designed to be a pilot, but I changed it to mechanic when I created the planet/moon Dianthe). I may change her back to the mechanic but really I want her to be the pilot. I just also want Oz to be the pilot…
Mechanic: Osmond “Oz” Sizanyuk (one of his original jobs. Never got around to figuring out his motivation for joining/staying with the crew).

Originally it had seven characters but that’s too many for a 32 page comic with an ensemble cast. Trust me, I tried (and failed). That’s why none have you have heard of Gregor Cale. I started trying to rewrite it with him in it and found the same problems.

I find Marcus a lot more interesting than Yue so far. It seems like Yue is just generically nice so far, which doesn’t give her a lot of interesting things to say or do. If you’re worried the cast-size is too large, one possibility would be removing the character and/or merging her with someone else. (Perhaps Marcus could be the pilot–How many scenes will there be where a cargo hand has a special role?) Alternately, I’d recommend fleshing out her personality with another trait.

i agree with B.mac about Marcus, it seems all he functions as so far is the comic relief. I really like of Chandi being the captain but how would that affect the relationship between her and Isaac? The only thing I’m not keen on is Bridget as the medic. I really liked the idea of the cook being shady, kind of like Treasure island

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